Billionaires, Bullets, Exploding Monkeys (A Brick Ransom Adventure)

by Mike Attebery

“I can’t imagine that their original plan involved them holing up in the basement of the building. They’ve gotta be looking for a new way out. That can only mean...” She trailed off.

  “That can only mean what?” Jeff asked.

  She turned to him.

  When she spoke, there was a whispery rasp in her voice, something Jeff had never heard before.

  “That can only mean trouble for someone in this room.”

  No sooner did she say it, than trouble showed its face. Tim and his second in command barked orders to the gunmen scattered around the room, who quickly scattered, hoisted their guns in the air, and screamed at the trapped crowd.

  “You move!” they shouted. “Move!”

  The crowd, some of whom had slumped over lab counters or sat on stools and chairs around the room, staggered to their feet, weary.

  “Back of the room!” the gunmen shouted.

  The crowd moved, their arms in the air, eyes nervous, unsure what effect even the slightest hesitation or confusion might have. Once the majority of them had been lined up against the back wall, the gunmen fanned out, one standing at each of the half-dozen doors going in and out of the lab. Three stood in the middle of the room, guns raised, scanning the crowd. A tenth man walked over to Tim and whispered something in his ear.

  Tim nodded and walked across the room, between two of the gunmen. Then he said, “Would my original guests please step forward?”

  Jeff’s heart murmured in his chest. No doubt his companions were feeling the same sensation. Nina was right. What now?

  Tim raised his voice. “Please step forward! We will not be waiting on you.”

  The five of them stood. Renoir climbed to his feet with a grunt of pain. Nina and David rose, their expressions defiant. Raj sort of shuffled forward, hand still clasped to wrist. They all stepped forward, emerging from the crowd, ghosts through the trees.

  “Thank you. Now, would the bunch of you be so kind as to make your way into the back room please.”

  Tim nodded towards the glassed-in room. Jeff’s jaw dropped. Oh my God.

  “Its not what you think,” Tim cooed. “It’s not what you think. You’re of no use to me dead, people.”

  They were all rocking their weight on the balls of their feet. This last sentence seemed to give them one last nudge forward, and they began walking. They were almost to the door when Tim spoke again.”

  “Not you, Mr. Drake.”

  David stopped in his tracks.

  “It is Mr. Drake?” Tim continued. “If this is Jeff Pepper, the two of you can only be Ms. Parker and Mr. Drake. You’re his guy and girl Friday, respectively, are you not?”

  Nina held Tim in a cold, steady gaze. David stood in the middle of the room, slowly turning towards the man who clearly knew more about him than he wanted to let on.

  “Yes, I know who all of you are now,” Tim said slowly. “Now, how can the coincidence of you being here, help me get out there? Oh, I know.”

  Tim motioned towards two of his men, who walked over, grabbed David by each of his arms, and headed out of the room.

  “David!” Nina shouted.

  “What do you want?!” Jeff bellowed. “Tell me what you want and I’ll get it for you.”

  Tim walked over to the far wall, where he gingerly selected one of the white canisters, which he cradled in his hands as he crossed the room. He stopped in front of Jeff and stared him in the face.

  “You’re gonna get me what I want either way.”

  “I have a chopper on the roof. The pilot is sitting at the controls, ready to go.”

  Tim hesitated. “What good would a helicopter do me, Mr. Pepper, if the minute I climb on board, the police shoot me down?”

  “We can make sure that they don’t.”

  “How?”

  “Tell them I’m on board,” Jeff said matter of factly.

  Tim again hesitated. “I think the boys out there still need a little lesson. David will help me with that part.”

  Jeff struggled to control himself. “If anything happens to him-”

  Tim looked from Jeff to the canister in his hand. For a moment it looked as if the man might be considering a change in his plans. Then he stepped back, motioned for David and two of the gunmen to exit the room, and walked out behind them.

  * * *

  Ransom was talking to Nick, asking him what he could see from inside the building, but so far, the little punk was totally useless.

  No kidding some people had been shot. You don’t say? Yeah? There were hostages? Fascinating...

  This information was nothing new.

  Who were these people? How many of them were there? What did they want? Thats what they needed to find out.

  Brick glanced over at Morgan, who had been ushered away from the crowd and now sat on the sidewalk with her back against the wall, her legs hugged up to her chest. Jesus, she was sexy. What kind of a guy landed a girl like that? Where was the justice in this world? This Nick guy didn’t sound like any great shakes at the moment. He was certainly no help from the inside. Ransom was just about to start venting his frustrations into the phone, when a hush settled over the crowd around him, and he noticed Phelps was again on the phone, waving his hand in the air for silence. Brick glanced at Murray, who gave him a matter of fact response.

  “It’s them again.”

  “Hello, this is Agent Phelps. Who am I speaking with?” He nodded his head slowly. “Okay, Tim, what do you want? We’re here to help you.”

  There was a pause. Phelps pressed his chin into his chest, clearly restraining himself.

  “Yes, well, let me assure you, that confrontation a few minutes ago was not under my authority,” he glared at Ransom. “We’re here to help you. We don’t want any more casualties.”

  Another pause.

  Ransom was about ready to crawl out of his skin.

  “Yes, we’re aware that Mr. Pepper is in the building.”

  Phelps grew quiet.

  “Yes, we know Mr. Drake-”

  He stopped short.

  “Hello? Tim?” Phelps turned to Murray. “The phone’s dead.”

  “He hung up.” Murray responded, “Want me to-”

  A gasp went up from the crowd. The agents raised their heads, looking towards the building. There, above the entrance to the rotunda, a lone figure in a business suit was walking out into a glassed-in room.

  “Who is that? There’s someone there!” a woman shouted.

  Ransom looked over at Murray questioningly.

  “That’s David Drake,” Murray replied. “He’s one of Jeff Pepper’s people.”

  “What’s he got in his hand?” Ransom asked.

  Murray raised a pair of binoculars to his eyes. He trained the lenses on the building, racing down the side to the windows, where he found the figure of David Drake, standing alone, his expression ashen, afraid. Murray lowered his gaze to Drake’s right hand. He was holding a small white canister, one with a blue metal control panel along the top.

  “What is that thing?” Phelps said.

  Murray dropped the binoculars. “Beats the hell out of me.”

  As they stood watching, Drake, his movements jerky and forced, raised the canister to his chest, hesitated, then lifted his left hand to meet it. Murray watched through the binoculars again, focusing on Drake’s hands as his fingers worked a switch along the top of the canister. After a moment of fumbling, the switch clicked into place, and a series of blue LED lights flickered along the top.

  Ransom turned to Phelps, then looked past him towards several TV news crews that had set up shop along the sidewalk, where they were now filming the action unfolding.

  “Phelps, you might want to get these TV people out of here. They could end up getting something no one wants to-”

  A shout went up from the crowd.

  Ransom looked back to the building as it started-

  A whisper of vapor puffed out from the canister and swirled in the air around Drake. For a moment nothing seemed
to be happening, then a look of horror and a grimace of pain flashed across David Drake’s face, before the man vanished, and a hemorrhaging, rupturing figure took his place. Blood oozed from Drake’s eyes and ears. The skin around his face lost all shape, rippling and bulging like a balloon left out in the sun. Then everything, face, features, neck, seemed to pulse and bubble, before every inch of skin, every pore, every human element turned inside out and exploded in a geyser of churning blood and pulp.

  Ransom turned away as the bloody silhouette of what had once been David Drake twisted in the misty red air and fell to the floor. Men and women in the crowd were screaming in terror. Ransom heard the sounds of people getting sick. Even the news guys, always the most cynical folks at any crime scene, looked as though they might lose it any second.

  “Holy fucking SHIT!” a young guy in the back shouted.

  “I couldn’t have said it better,” Phelps muttered to his men. “Anybody ever seen anything like that before?”

  They all shook their heads.

  “That was something very new,” Aftab stammered.

  “All right then,” Phelps responded. “I’m gonna go out on a limb here and suggest we throw that device into the mix as a possible motive for these guys being here. Anyone have a problem with that?”

  No one said a word.

  * * *

  What the hell?

  The agent he’d been talking with had completely left him hanging.

  “Hello?” Nick shouted into the phone. “HELLOOOO?!”

  Nothing. Asshole.

  “HEY! Hello?!!”

  Still nothing. Then —

  “Keep your fucking voice down, kid!” the voice squawked through the receiver.

  “Where were you man?”

  “Shit came up,” Ransom responded.

  “What do I do now?” Nick asked.

  “I need you to check on some things for me. Get me some info from inside.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  * * *

  Go down the hall! That’s what he wanted him to do. What kind of agent was this? In a situation like this, weren’t they supposed to be making sure the people inside were safe?

  Now, here he was, walking the down the hallway, listening for even the slightest sound from any direction. Wondering if someone was gonna jump out and pop him in the head.

  The first steps out of the back room were the hardest. The tension in the air seemed to crackle around him, literally crackle! The lights were flickering. Something was shorting out. Nick could hear the low, sharp sizzle of fizzling wires. He smelled the smoke of burning insulation. And something else. Gunpowder. The air tasted of metal. He strained his ears, feeling the hairs on his neck standing at attention.

  Listening.

  Listening.

  Nothing.

  He got to the end of the corridor and again hesitated. A mirror, cut in the shape of a fruit wedge, was hung across from the intersection of the two corridors. It was placed at an angle where wall and ceiling met, to let people see if someone was about to run them down with a cartful of beakers and Bunsen burners. If Nick was armed, the mirror might make for an even playing field. As it was, if anyone came down that corridor, they’d immediately see his reflection in the mirror, and then, more likely than not, he’d be dead.

  He pressed his back against the wall. Eyes locked on the mirror. Heart pounding. Beads of sweat sprung from his temples.

  All was clear. No movement.

  Nick took a series of quick steps out into the hallway, turned to the right, and ran along the wall. As he reached the end of the next hall, he glanced up at another mirror hung up against the ceiling, and shot around that corner as well. Then he stumbled to a stop. The double doors leading into the rotunda were shut. Nick stepped closer to the doors, his hand reaching for the handles. Then he stopped. A thin silver wire, no thicker than a thread, was wrapped around the handles. Nick leaned closer. The wire did one loop around each handle, then ran across the front of the door, held to the metal with small strips of tape. At the doorframe, the wire turned and ran down to the floor, where it disappeared into a small metal cylinder, no bigger than a pint of milk, that was taped against the wall. There were no flashing lights. No timers or gizmos like you’d see in the movies, but somehow Nick knew what this was.

  He stood and headed down another corridor. After a moment he came to another exit from this building. These doors were also rigged up with the same sort of device.

  Nick ran down another corridor, and then another.

  Both were rigged up with the same contraptions.

  He tracked his way back to the first corridor and again picked up the phone.

  * * *

  “Shit,” Ransom said, covering the mouthpiece on the phone and turning to Phelps. “The doors are wired.”

  “Wired like how?” Phelps asked, as he twirled one end of his moustache in his fingers.

  “Wired like boom.”

  “Well, that’s to be expected,” Murray muttered.

  Ransom pulled his hand away from the mouthpiece, pacing back and forth as he pontificated. “Listen kid, I’m coming in there.”

  Phelps narrowed his eyes, shaking his head from side to side jerkily.

  “In the meantime, see if you can’t find yourself a cell phone somewhere. That’ll make all this reconnaissance work just a wee bit easier. Write down this number. Otherwise, I’ll be giving you a call again in a few minutes.”

  Ransom hung up the phone and immediately marched away from Phelps and the flurry of questions he knew would be swirling his way.

  He turned to Murray.

  “I need you to get me inside. Gimme the best route, and if you say anything about crawling through a heating duct I’m gonna be very skeptical.”

  “No heating ducts,” Murray responded, not missing a beat. “I figured this was coming, so I started going through the plans during your camera guy’s little bullet and glass dance routine.”

  “By the way, get that tape from him and double check the footage of Griffin. I want to make sure its him.”

  Murray nodded. “I’m way ahead of you. It’s him.”

  Ransom smirked. “You act like you’ve worked with me before.”

  “Yeah, wonder what that’s all about. Funny thing about Griffin, not only has he killed the hostages at the end of every one of these operations, but he’s also taken out almost all the guys working with him on each job.”

  “And how did he do that? Bombs?”

  “You got it,” Murray replied.

  “All right, what have you got for me? Pull up your little battle plan.”

  Murray flipped his laptop around and started punching at the keys. “You got it.”

  “Ransom, lets have a little talk, shall we?” Phelps was now looming over Ransom’s shoulder. “Do I need Murray here to pull up a little chart of the chain of command while he’s at it?”

  Ransom took a deep breath.

  Fucking red tape.

  Fucking southern bookworm, goody two-shoed, waxed-moustached, and funky-hatted pain in his SWAT-team-spirited, hospital-raiding, hostage-rescuing ass.

  “What, Phelps? You wanna waste more time? You wanna wait and see who else this guy sets up in a little display room and blows to kingdom come?”

  “We can’t just let loose here,” Phelps said. “This isn’t some movie, and you’re not Bruce Willis.”

  Ransom bristled. He loved Bruce Willis.

  Showtime.

  The turning point soliloquy.

  “Look, Phelps, I’m not asking to go in there and start shooting out lights while wire-fighting in the air like some sort of kung fu ham bone. I wanna do this carefully, and I wanna do this right, but you just saw what I saw, and the way I figure, this isn’t just a hostage situation anymore. We’ve gotta think about the people inside, but we’ve also gotta think about what we just witnessed. We can’t let him kill anyone else, and we can’t let him get away with whatever the hell that stuff was he just us
ed on Jeff Pepper’s guy. You wanna stay out here and negotiate, talk into a phone with some guy who doesn’t want to take the call? Maybe pussyfoot around here and see if you can talk him into letting one or two folks go? Talk about cars and planes and taking them to the runway, all that nonsense. I think you and I both know this guy’s not gonna go for that. If anything, he’s gonna get out of there somehow, probably without us knowing, and leave behind a little bomb to blow the place sky high as soon as he’s a block or two away.”

  “You’re probably right, but-“

  “But what? Gimme three of these SWAT guys, let Murray here gimme a little triptic itinerary, and send me on my way. What do ya say?”

  Ransom looked at Phelps, who looked at Murray, who stood expectantly, his fingers on the edge of the monitor.

  “What have ya got for him, Murray?” Phelps muttered.

  * * *

  It was Ransom and two other guys. Gomez and Lucifer. Brick had worked with both men before.

  The guys back at headquarters, the ones who’d thought up the “Agent Butterfingers” title, were always quick to test out nicknames on the newcomers. When Lucifer first joined up two years ago, they’d tried to nickname him “Lucy.” When they saw the way he handled a gun, they quickly changed it to “Luke.”

  Where Luke was serious, and above all things, humorless about his name, Gomez was the jokester, more than adept at his job, but never overwhelmed by the situations their line of work got them into. He also had a penchant for eating marshmallow circus peanuts, and kept the pockets of his vest and cargo pants stuffed with them.

  They took the elevator to the top of the north wing, where it was just a one story climb to the roof. The smoke from the construction site fire was thick in the air as they opened the hatch and stepped out onto the gravel and tar roof.

  “Christ, man! It stinks out here,” Gomez said.

  Ransom pulled out the field printouts of Murray’s plans — both an overhead view and a series of smaller pages with cross sections of the buildings. Since the hospital and the medical center had been built in sections over the past 70 years, each building was both a snapshot of the architectural tastes of its particular decade and an illustration of the financial and service needs as perceived by the university’s board of directors at the time of construction. As a result, every building was a three-dimensional, very tangible economic bar column. In short, none of the rooftops were the same level, which meant getting from one end of the hospital to the other was going to be a bitch, but with the inside route rigged up like a dirty bomb version of Mouse Trap, this was the only way to get into the guts of the Health Sciences Building and start cutting out the bad guys.